Research Happens: Navigating the Unexpected, Plus a Hot-Off-the-Press Stimulus Survey

all right all right welcome everyone to the march installment of excellent research virtual insights conference um for those of you just joining for the first time thank you very much welcome for those who have been here for some of our previous conferences uh thanks for coming back we um have had the pleasure to be holding these virtual conferences now for gosh a year um you know pandemic hit us and shutdowns began uh about a year ago and collectively as a team here at excellent research we kind of you know scratched our heads and you know made note of the fact that that uh um all of the in-person conferences were going away so you know we decided to to do something about that and put on our own uh series of conferences at the time back in march april of last year we thought it was just going to be one event but it went really well very well received i think just researchers in general were happy to have an opportunity to to get together to talk shop couldn't do so in person so this was the next best thing um you know i always give the caveat of accelerant is a research company we're not an event uh planning company we're not a conference organization company so you know our um polish may not be you know what you see with some other virtual conferences um not apologizing for that we're just a bunch of research nerds getting together and talking about the craft so that's what we're going to do today um yeah let's see one year ago that's right so you know a few ground rules that we go through if you've been in on any of these virtual conferences you've heard these before you'll hear them throughout the day but you know just like to flash them at the beginning of each presentation just to remind everyone oh i don't think i mentioned the rebrand uh so last year we were the uh quarantined virtual insights conference um you know here we are we're a year later things are looking much better so we wanted to ditch the uh the negative attitude bring a little optimism to the table so we changed to just the straight up accelerate research virtual insights conference um you know hopefully not too long we'll actually be able to do these things you know by choice virtually or in person whenever we want to right um but we got a few gravels that we like to sort of give you guys at the outset um number one is we're at the mercy of the tech um so we've still got you know dispersed presenters dispersed uh attendees a lot of our presenters like most if not all are still still working from home still subject to whatever bandwidth connectivity um pets kids you name it that you can think of um so you know just be patient be respectful um you know we're all in this together so let's let's just you know learn from one another and and go along those lines i think a couple of my favorites that we've had over over the year um we've had a partic a presentation where that got interrupted by an appliance delivery we've had a couple of presentations that got you know stopped for a reboot or a you know unexpected software install right in the middle um we roll with the punches we you know we'll just keep on keeping on if for whatever reason you know our host feed goes out if out one of our presenters go out we will be archiving and recording everything and we'll catch you on the on the flip side as it were um this also being a virtual event and we can't you know get together and see each other at the bar or the cocktail line um we try to encourage networking as much as possible um you know try to get out there talk to one another if you're in the zoom meeting right now so we've got you know a few different touch points that this uh these webinars are happening on we've got zoom which is kind of the the hub that we're broadcasting so we've got a lot of folks who are attending here you have access to a chat function there's a q a function that you can definitely feel free to to chatter with one another post questions to our speakers um you know whatever you like we've got other folks that are accessing via linkedin some via youtube some via twitter um that may not have access to the zoom chatter necessarily but there is chat available in each of those platforms um and we have accelerant host folks who are going to be monitoring um you post questions there you have comments uh we'll we'll definitely catch those and and you know bring them into the conversation okay so we've got a really great lineup for for today um you know we're starting with our 11 o'clock talk uh in just a few moments uh but just a quick rundown of the other speakers that we have today so we've got starting at noon we've got heidi carrion and jillian wells they're going to be talking about ethnography the power and the pivot we've got the chase design and sympactful teams who are going to be speaking on the physical store new realities new opportunities and we're going to close the day with a couple of uh really interesting customer experience related uh talks uh number one is going to be at 2pm from mark michelson and this is going to be how customer experience research is changing the game for marketing research followed by our cleanup hitter for the day is going to be john whitaker and he's going to be talking about extracting the power of customer experience management systems um so some really really great topics um a lot of insights to to get into our first presenter of the day at 11 o'clock am was scheduled to be josh defries from wallow greens talking about design research for the covid19 vaccine roadmaps but um unforeseen circumstances or perhaps foreseen circumstances i mean here we are in the midst of code vaccine roll out um excuse me josh is going to be unable to give his talk today um you know if any of you are in the midst of trying to get your own vaccine you know that it is you know dynamic doesn't even begin to describe what's going on out there um you know we're refreshing uh apps and and appointment calendars you know throughout the day trying to get ourselves scheduled and in um it's equally crazy right now for someone who is on the front line you know a part of the design and administration team as josh is for walgreens so ran into a snafu with regard to you know being able to get his presentation ready for this morning and out the door and approved by corporate communications that's obviously a big piece so josh is unable to do it for today but luckily we don't lose josh altogether he is going to be able to join us for next month's conference um which is going to be april 29th go ahead and save the date mark your calendars josh is going to be joined by at present uh mandy drew from capital one molly molsom from charles schwab and marcus cunha from university of georgia mmr program marcus is actually going to be joined by some of his students as well i'm looking forward to that that presentation and everyone's we've got one or two more that are to be announced so stand by for those um so josh isn't able to present at 11 a.m but the show must go on um you know this is what we've been up against during cobit right uh just craziness you know what is the buzzword of kobe 19 and pandemic and everything that we've been dealing with for the past year pivot everybody say it with me um we this is what we're up against so you know why should a a conference be any different right so we get and we're researchers guys so you know we're used to this type of thing uh by the way we're pivot you know used to be kind of an obscure member of the buzzword bingo card um now i think it's you know any anything that you sit on it's it's there it's almost like that free star space in the middle of the veto card it just you know everybody's talking about this um okay so josh is unable to present today uh i am going to attempt to step in and and take his place um you know we've got similar haircuts so you know you're not missing out on too much we thought about you know just let it slide not even mention the fact that josh isn't presenting that i'm gonna take his place um do like terence howard in the first iron man we show up for iron man 2 and you know it's as if nothing happened right um except in that case i think i'd be the don cheadle of this analogy and no way um i can't feel his shoes so you know i think maybe better analogy is uh jinxing cat uh the second substitute jinxy cat and meet the parents um that's that's that's what you get so congratulations guys um no but i'm gonna give you a two for the price of one presentation so i can't possibly compete with with the subject matter that josh had so i'm gonna give you two presentations uh number one speaking of what what we're dealing with with substitute presentation uh research happens um going to talk about you know all those external crazy factors that happen for us research peeps um you know the stuff they don't teach you in research school right uh the second half of my presentation is going to be basically sharing results from a recent uh survey that the accelerant team recent is in like this week um the team conducted on the subject of stimulus uh what are people doing with it uh what does it mean to them you know who's received who hasn't received who's expecting to receive um so some interesting you know hot off the presses results for that so you know appreciate you guys being flexible and that's what we're going to do so we are going to pivot into my presentation um so like i said two parts first part is going to be the research happens um and like i said you know i won't say that this is a hastily thrown together presentation but it is you know not going to be as 100 polished as maybe some of our other presenters today but that's okay i think it's some good subject matter um as insights and research professionals you know this is the stuff that we deal with on a daily basis right you know we we design our research studies to be you know these these beautiful works of art and then you know here come the the factors that are that are going to potentially throw us up off our game so you know what do we do we quit do we call timeout no we just we we keep on going it's not over we keep keep on keeping on so i'm gonna and i'm gonna check my notes throughout this and you know forgive me like i said this isn't gonna be you know ted talk level polish but you know just some interesting interesting things you know from my own experience from you know folks that i've dealt with over my career um experiences here at accelerant and you know the corporate side um going to try to bounce around you know give some examples that are with regard to qualitative research quantitative research corporate side supplier side academia junior level senior level factors um trying to have a little something for everyone definitely you know you guys you're the warriors out there doing this every day as well so in the chatter feel free to to share your own stories to share you know any anecdotes that you have um you know we've all got the scars to prove it having having done this and chosen this pathway as a career so you know definitely feel free to talk about it right um like i said i'm gonna go through some examples um and definitely you guys feel free to do the same so i'm gonna break this up into a few different topics or or subjects right so number one participant happens um you design your study you've got it all figured out you have your target target audience set ready to go ready to roll um and then you know maybe you start to field your research and things happen um you know i think a great example of this is you think about uh target audience for media box for for advertising or even maybe from behavioral database internally at a company um those targets don't always translate to research targets necessarily right you sometimes especially you know if you are doing ad testing product development research if you are keeping a focus as narrow potentially as you know what what the media team is is doing from a from a creative standpoint or from a media buy standpoint maybe missing out on a very large proportion of the potential target audience for your research um so you know as researchers we have to think about these things right you know when a request is coming through and we are being asked to to start rolling on some research you need to take with a grain of salt you know that request you know maybe maybe it is marketing internally that that has a request maybe the point of that request is to you know really hone in on this very specific audience but you know you as the researcher have to be kind of the voice of reason and you know sometimes even push back on if that audience is appropriate or if it should be expanded upon um these are the things that we have to kind of talk through talk about um one of my favorite subjects when it comes to participants is especially with qualitative research is the sort of expectation versus reality right when you're sitting down designing a research study and even designing the audience for research study that audience in your head as the research designer may look very different than you know the folks who are maybe sitting around the table in a focus group facility right um you know this is especially true when it comes to um a customer segment segmentation right algorithms in customer segmentation and maybe you've done a very large scale quant segmentation you develop this really cool algorithm to take individuals based on survey responses or demographics and behavioral uh characteristics and you know put them into their respective customer segment buckets right and you've got really cool personas and and profiles that are based on this large-scale you know bit of segmentation research um when it comes to qualitative research if you're not careful if all you do is apply that segmentation algorithm or typing tool to recruiting for qualitative research for example um you can be sorely disappointed and so can the folks that are in the room talking to you or that are in the observation room rather stakeholders internally who are you know receiving this research um in a fun exercise that i always recommend you go through when you know when you've done a segmentation study when you've produced this type of of information is actually to go into your uh into your data file into your huge you know segmentation data file and start to look line by line at your individuals um you know those personalities that are developed in aggregate when you're looking at you know these entire buckets or segments um you know they're distinct in many cases you look at it on an individual level you are often you know there's a lot of open a lot of bleeding you know i mean you think about you know i'll take like a soda segmentation for example you know a an individual who purchases you know soda once a week versus twice a week you know it may look almost identical from a you know a personality and you know brand affinity standpoint but that may be kind of a cutoff point that you know sends them into one segment bucket versus nothing so when you're doing qualitative research i always recommend especially if there's a segment segmentation algorithm or or typing tool involved it's always a good idea to accompany that with segment profiles so not only you know what makes an individual a member of a given segment but also you know what that segment is supposed to look like so when you're recruiting for this you know qualitative research you can actually take these things into consideration right you can recruit for personality in addition to you know segment membership um you got a a few more things with regard to uh to participants um but let's get into the next section um and that's gonna be tech tech now um you know when i started my research career i did almost all of my research i'm gonna date myself a little bit but was uh mall intercept driven um this was in-person research you know remember the people at the mall with the clipboards um you know that was how we did the vast majority of quantitative research um maybe you know some kd research as well um over the phone but this internet thing you know at the time was wasn't even a thing um you know fast forward to now and you know especially quantitative the vast majority of research that is done is done online um you know so tech is and you know what does that give us right it gives us you know far greater you know speed to market uh speak to results um much less expensive um less of a logistical undertaking but we are incredibly reliant on that technology and when it craps out you know we got problems so what do you do when when the tech happens you know how do you respond what do you do as researchers um you know some qualitative examples i i'll give you a couple of them because those are always fun um you know this past year uh all of the in-person research for qualitative um you know pivoted over to online um and zoom became you know a best friend of lots of us i mean we're doing this this webinar right now hosted via zoom we've done a ton of focus groups of uh in-depth interviews of you know qualitative research via zoom and you know there was a great anecdote that we had was you know we had a a set of focus groups that were launching um i guess this would have been i don't know maybe spring of last year so this was after after shutdown but it happened to be you know the day that we were launching a series of focus groups was the same day that just about every school in america was getting back to some type of school right so it was almost exclusively virtual at the time and guess what they were using to access zoom so you know this was the morning that everybody was and you know you still had at the time so many folks in corporate america who were also using zoom for for meetings so you know 9 a.m on that monday we're ready to roll with it with a focus group and so is everyone just absolutely bombarding the zoom platform and they went down for i think it was a couple of hours they responded quickly they got it back up and running but we had a group that was supposed to be happening at the time we had to pivot we had to jump over to another platform um you know it's not it's not perfect it's not as it was designed but we were able to to make it work um i've been in you know in person focus groups where you know fuse has gone out in the observation room behind the glass now we our audio feed is is cut we have no you know laptops or power what do you do um in that case we'll actually you know get the the group of observers and in many cases bring them into the the um focus group interview room you know stick them in you know against the wall in chairs apologize to the the participants you know tell them to ignore the the folks that are staring and breathing down their throat but you know the show must go on right so you adjust you pivot you figure out you know what what can be done um you know i always recommend whenever possible with just about any research study um always thinking about contingencies thinking about what ifs um you know hopefully you never have to to use them but you know if we become too reliant and comfortable you know that's when we can really cause trouble for ourselves or get ourselves into trouble when something is you know expected to work and doesn't right um you know so tech is a bit of a you know a double-edged sword um you've got you know the helpful side which i mean we could i can't imagine what this pandemic would have been like you know 10 years ago now everyone has connectivity everybody is able to you know get together to the extent possible but um thank goodness for for the tech that has sort of kept us going right um but there is you know a darker side to to technology as well um and if we're not careful as researchers um it can really bite us um so quite research and even qual we we've been seeing this happen happening to a certain extent um you know the rise of survey bots um the rise of professional survey takers um you know ai is really you know magical and helping us from a research execution and analysis standpoint and even quality control like you know on the one hand we we can use ai to to help weed out some of these bad players right the the cheaters and the folks that are trying to manipulate their way into into research studies but um you know they're they're savvy and they are always looking for the next in so you know i challenge all researchers you know supplier side where i sit you know this is a huge piece of what we do is just trying to stay one step ahead of the uh cheaters and the bots um and this comes out comes down to just being obsessive about quality control about you know checking data checking responses trying to make sure that you know we can keep out you know those who who are trying to take part in research um you know for for malicious reasons um you know if you're looking to lose any sleep tonight because you know not enough anxiety in the world today um go to uh there's a reddit thread i believe it's called beer money um you know it has a few offshoots that start to talk about um basically ways to for the most part it is innocent and it's just you know folks sharing ways to you know make a couple of extra bucks and in some cases that is you know taking part in in survey research and qualitative research um but there are definitely some dark pathways that you can get down with you know you know tips and tricks on how to to cheat your way into research studies to make yourself appear qualified to present yourself as someone that you are not um and then you know ways to either you know develop your own block code ways to go out and purchase bots um yeah it's scary um it's you know i don't mean to be too too doomsday is about it but it's something that we as researchers we must acknowledge we must you know pay attention to because it's it's there and if we're completely ignoring then you know we're gathering garbage data right um even starting to see it creep into the world of of qualitative users well um bots that is um there are a lot of you know chat bots and language processing and ai tools in existence to help us in qualitative research um actually conduct interviews more efficiently you know quicker um you know chat bots are in play for you know lots of companies right you know this helps to you know take care of customer service on a on a faster basis but there's the flip side to that and you know participants or fake participants can be creating these types of bots as well um the real world example that i like to give is all right so i'm a i'm a bit of a sneaker head i have a problem when it comes to sneakers i'm seeking help i am you know i'm putting it out there on the table uh but nike you know has this in enabling app that you know i just i can't get enough of it's called sneakers out where they basically release you know rare versions of their shoes um you know and suckers like me will get on there and you you're frantically trying to through to grab the next shoot so 10 a.m on a saturday morning they drop a new shoe they let you know beforehand that it's coming and there's all kinds of excitement and so right at 10 a.m you know you have your phone you have to very quickly hit purchase type in your information and you get put in line to to maybe grab you know these new cool shoes so two examples being shown here of times when i did not get the shoes and time stamps on both of these so the kind of hunger games competition for for getting these rare shoes starts at 10 o'clock in the morning by 1008 and 1007 respectively i am told that i didn't get them um literally i immediately at 10 a.m start typing in for my information to choose them and it doesn't happen why bots there are shopping bots out there that in milliseconds you know can get in line ahead of me to to get these um these shoes and you know you can go online and look at you know seconds after nike releases these brand new shoes um they are available on reseller sites for sometimes double and triple the price so you know definitely incentive involved um you know obviously the research analogy there is that you know if you can cheat your way into lots and lots of research you can you know make it pretty lucrative for yourself and if no one is paying attention i.e the researchers folks are just getting away with it and clients and end users on the opposite end are you know receiving garbage data all right so speaking of end users stakeholders stakeholder happens so you know we all as researchers serve someone right we are doing this research on behalf of somebody right if you're on the corporate side it's it's on behalf of or helping to aid decision making for for executives for board members for lines of business uh steering committees you name it right if you're on the supplier side you're serving clients or clients clients or clients clients clients depending on where you sit in the food chain you know think about like a you know a sample provider for example you could be seven eight in some cases steps removed from the person that's actually receiving you know the research and that you know creates issue in and of itself you know imagine the communication trickle that that has to happen in order for everyone to get the right information um you know even academia you know we're like i said we're all we're all serving someone whether it's publications review boards you name it right um and we're all subject to politics so you know all the things and factors that can be you know messing with our individual research studies you know the stakeholders that that we're working with are subject to their own sets of circumstances and factors and you know environmental and political issues that can mess up what they're doing and thereby mess up what we're doing you know to the extent possible it's our job as as inside professionals researchers to try to understand what those around us are up against and anticipate be ready for respond to as best we can right um and i think you know in this talk i kind of go back and forth between you know as issues come up and you just sort of roll with the punches and adjust you know all the way to you know there's it's kind of a continuum right there's the doomsday on the other end um now we we bounce around among all um all right where are we on time i'm gonna speed through these these last few so we can get to some survey results um you know deadline happens uh agile research is very much a thing right now um and if executed properly it's very high quality not just you know deep and dirty you know get in get out type of research and it relies heavily on parallel path right so you know i want to as quickly as possible be able to hit the ground running with you know this i don't know a concept test for example that is going to rely on whoever is supplying that stimulus to me to be able to drop in to this quick research so i can get quick results to produce um and you know just like we talked about with stakeholders if they get derailed for whatever reason that's going to impact what i'm working on um and you know we have to we have to adjust we have to figure out ways to to make sure that we're you know taking into consideration make sure that we're you know trying to work around and adjust to anything that's happening right all right budget happens so you know as researchers right so you know scenario is you september october november you know you you basically spend your time putting together diligence budget in strap planning you've you know talked to all of your stakeholders you know exactly what the following year's your research agenda is going to look like december you get your budget approved january you are off to the races um and then maybe q1 earnings come out and you know it just throws everything you know into the crap or what do you do um you have to be able to to make adjustments you have to be able to you know understand again what volts are up to anticipate to the extent possible you know in some cases budget gets cut mid-year and you have to start you know figuring out ways to be scrappier you know that detailed research agenda which had all kinds of elegant you know research designs may not be even a possibility anymore so what do you do you know as researchers we we certainly start with the work of art research design right someone comes to us with objectives we put together a a study which is going to meet those objectives everybody's going to be you know happy it's going to have you know every possible you know bell whistle storytelling element it's just going to be wonderful that's where we begin but then you know all these factors that i've been talking about start to come into play and we have to basically take that work of art and whittle it down to as close to as close to what is ideal as possible under the circumstances and you know that is the sort of art and science of what we do um and it's you know as a career researcher this is the exciting part of it right it's not just about the nuts and bolts of project execution it's all this other stuff that comes into play um so you know macro happens um i won't really go into this uh too much other than hey guess what you know the best example of macro is uh what happened to us you know just over this past year um you know who could have imagined what we've witnessed over this past year um you know this time last year we were plugging along and then we weren't um it's just it's remarkable what has happened you know now we're beginning to look back and and you know things are beginning to get back to somewhat normal or whatever version of normal they're going to be but you know here we are now in very much a learning mode you know our consumers purchasers stakeholders are you know these these folks that we ultimately serve you know what are they going to even look like on back end of the this year next year and even beyond um you know we just that's the gig as researchers right you know you think you knew your audience that you targeted or that you you would deal with and then you know factors come in and they kind of throw things right into craziness um so you know based on the we're all learning right so that brings me to our second half or second phase of of this webinar and that's going to be stimulus survey results so accelerate research we did a survey actually tuesday and wednesday of this week among a thousand consumers uh very general pop survey um you know census rep on demographics with the exception of household income in order to qualify for the study uh you had to be less than 150 000 in household income obviously those are you know presumably the fairly loose parameters that would qualify one for stimulus potentially based on you know what we know about who gets it and who doesn't right so we conducted this research using um our panel aggro usa this is accelerants panel this will be the extent of my sales pitch of the day for all your qualitative and quantitative needs feel free to reach out anytime no but we we used agara um to conduct this research um and this was about you know have you received the stimulus you know what have you done with it what do you plan to do with it um you know this is far from an exhaustive you know deep dive into the the consumer psyche and what you know the american consumer is going to look like but it's interesting and there's some interesting thought starters that can hopefully help help you along the way and maybe give you some some insight into what's going on all right so first one we start with is you know have you received your stimulus payment and you know we have two thirds of our respondents saying that they have um and i mean that's fascinating right that you know this thing got approved what i mean it's not even two weeks old yet and you've already got two thirds of folks already having received so i know the intent was to inject a butt load of uh money into the economy and you know as mission accomplished from that standpoint at least so how was your stimulus stimulus payment receipt um vast majority again this is you know as of i think tuesday wednesday of this week vast majority via direct deposit checks just beginning and i think i've seen on the on the newswire that um checks are like as of middle to late this week really starting to hit people's accounts so you know that remaining third that hadn't received yet presumably these are the folks that are that are more of the of the paper check um and this other uh that seems to be you know a smattering of uh prepaid debit cards um you've got some folks that you know use like an h r block for for tax preparation and they have some sort of account set up through there which it gets dumped into which is technically would be like a direct deposit but interesting nonetheless so all right so stimulus received among those who have received it you know to what extent have they or how much of this stimulus payment have they already spent um you know you've got one in five that have already spent the whole thing it came in and it's gone out just as fast um you know you've got what half nearly half who have spent the entire the entire thing um i'm sorry spent at least 50 um so you know again if the intent from an economic you know stimulus standpoint was to inject a whole lot of cash and get people moving well it seems to be doing that right so where is this money being spent um so what we did was ask ask folks to essentially you know give us a rundown of the the percent of their stimulus payment which is going into the lots of different things that they could be spending money on um so you know in aggregate you know what is the share of stimulus spending right so this is you know how much they've either already spent or how much are they planning to spend right where's it going so so this would be 40 cents out of every dollar going to bills uh 25 cents to saving investments 10 cents to shopping and 13 to other [Music] what we're going to do is also now kind of go in and break down each of these right all right so we've got other what does that mean so we've got travel vacation um auto down payments home down payments uh charity or donation so you know travel and vacation i actually expected that to be much larger um maybe it's you know a view of something that's about to start happening we're at the front end of you know people really starting to open up from from a travel standpoint but four cents on the dollar going to to to travel or vacation interesting um so shopping right yep so 10 cents on the dollar going to shopping this i found fascinating um still you know that's a 60 40 split on online in favor of online shopping 60 um compared to in-store shopping so you know definitely not this at least not yet right this revenge spending that we keep hearing uh retailers talking about and you know predicting uh maybe we're at the front end of that but there's still a whole lot of online e-commerce happening um and again you know to what extent is that online shopper here at state right saving and investing so you know i mean you've got three quarters of that stimulus that is just going out the door um so people are receiving and it's you know directly into um spending essentially um but you've also got a quarter that are that's going to saving slash investing right um and the breakdown of that is you know vast majority is just your typical you know deposit savings account um a little bit to investment uh saw an article last week about you know i think it was definitely an agenda-based article trying to kind of tell the you know here we go again with you know bitcoin and crypto taking over over the world um yeah it's it's there but you know it's certainly not the wave that that some might be claiming or predicting um and then then there's bills you know and that is the vast majority of you know the spending that's that's happened or happening uh is just going to to paying for the stuff that that we need to get by um and that breaks down to you know credit card and loans followed by mortgage and rent utilities and you know seven cents on every stimulus dollar going to pass due bills which i mean come on you've got vacations that are getting four cents on the dollar uh past due bills getting seven um that's that's pretty substantial okay so you know to what extent did consumers you know report you know the impact of this stimulus payment hassle so either they you know didn't know what they would do without it um either they needed it but could have gone by without it um didn't need it but sure is nice to have or you know this tiny sliver at the top which is they don't need and don't walk only one percent of our respondents chose they don't need um i guess that's not terribly surprising and we took a look at this question by political affiliation you know figuring there might be some some interesting findings a little bit of you know i guess variance uh democrats versus republicans uh but the one i found you know most fascinating is the you know they don't need it don't want it everybody agrees um and i think you know that's just you know in spite of all the differences and there have certainly been a lot of you know polarization over the past several years guess what wu-tang was absolutely right cash flows everything around um everybody wants money you know that's just just the way it is um all right we also looked at and spoke to within this survey uh business owners contractors gig workers um and asked the question of you know if you've received your stimulus um you know what have you used it at all for for business purposes um and one in five saying yes that's that's substantial right and it speaks to you know what we kind of have all seen and and know to be true throughout the past year is you know we're we're scraping we're continuing to get by things are certainly looking better but man i mean there's still there's still issue and you know the the small business owners is certainly not immune to that and certainly you know feeling the pinch um using some of that personal capital to to help keep the business afloat right and i think that's it all right so 10 minutes left um any questions that anyone has um definitely feel free to throw them into the q a or into the chat uh venus if you've seen anything definitely feel free to yeah i i just have one question here from gary i don't know if you want to address it here or you want to contact him personally it's like uh how do you approach doing qualitative research on a new innovative product that no one has seen before wow yeah that's um that is a presentation in and of itself um i will give the answer that is the answer to every single research question in existence um it depends depends on the category depends on the the product um if it is something that is you know brand spanking new i mean you always use the there's that wonderful you know apple is an apple analogy um i can't recall anyway the ipod when it was a brand new thing you know had you presented you know a a product concept to someone very early stage in the innovation of it it's a brand new category you know can consumers can participants even wrap their brains around it or do you need to go in a different direction in terms of how you're going to go about assessing and finding out about this thing um you know if this brand is banking news sometimes you do have to get a little more innovative uh when it comes to even your research approach uh in order to get you know some decent intelligence right any others venus no that that's all that is okay well got about eight minutes till the next uh next presentation kicks off so i'm gonna go dark for a few minutes let you guys grab a beverage um hit the restroom and we'll see you again at the top of the hour thanks everybody